I think this is best explained with a bit of history:

• Next started as a passion project
• It grew way beyond any of our expectations
• We might as well keep going since there is an interest in this space

Beyond that:

• Next has been a great learning experience, including development, management, and running the infrastructure for a large project. Next has also taught me a lot about different concepts and programming languages, and really, that's how developers learn. We make cool projects to try to better how we work, it doesn't matter if someone has done it before as long as you can attempt to do the same. Reinventing the wheel is part of the process.
• At the time, there was also a relative void of competition in this specific genre of chat platforms. There were Guilded, Discord, and Matrix but these are all either closed-source or cater to a different audience.

PS. I've had a few people say, 'why not just contribute to X?', the answer is quite simple, I just didn't know about any of these projects (i.e. Matrix).

Next is entirely funded through donations, we have amassed a significant amount of money from donations alone. (financial transparency reports coming soon :tm:)

The month-to-month income of Next covers our operational costs and leaves enough spare to cover yearly expenses and the occassional one-time expense, such as for additional hardware.

We have monetisation plans lined up for the future, however it is not our intention to paywall existing features, instead where possible we intend to pass down costs such as for file storage or voice bandwidth.

Please take a look at our roadmap on Next server.

If you find something is not listed, it could be being worked on somewhere or have been requested as a feature.

As of right now, Next does not feature any federation and it is not in our feature roadmap.

However, this does not necessarily mean federation is off the table, possible avenues are:

• Implement our own federation protocol
• Implement a promising up and coming federation protocol, polyproto
• Implement the Matrix protocol (unlikely, obtuse and unstable)
• Implement the XMPP protocol (battle-tested and stable)

Any federation that is implemented MUST exercise caution in:

• Preventing spam and abuse: moderators should be able to block malicious actors
• Protecting user data: users should be able to redact all of their information and messages

Currently, you can only apply to verify servers given that you have a valid reason to believe verification is necessary for your community. Verification is intended to provide protection for server owners from copy cats and to provide authenticity to users as such we are not just giving it out to anyone because that would defeat the purpose.

However if you would like to get a server verified, you should satisfy one of the following criteria:

• Official community for a well-established open source project

• Official community for any other well-established product, service, or person

• Large and active distinct pre-existing community

  Distinct means the community is unique and well-known (& has an active presence) off platform. This means we are not currently verifying generic servers that centre around a topic unless if it meets one of the first two criteria. Though in special circumstances, well known on platform communities may also be considered.

Server verification also comes with a vanity invite, so please have one ready if you want to apply. To apply, drop an email at [email protected].

We also periodically prune verification from servers that have fallen into disrepair and / or otherwise are no longer active.